


Use Somebody

by AsgardianElf



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: He needs his family to get through them, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Jeff Winger Has Issues, Mainly season 1, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, inspired by 4x05, when Jeff mentions making his own appendectomy scar
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:54:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23592649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsgardianElf/pseuds/AsgardianElf
Summary: Jeff Winger doesn’t want his friends to see that he’s broken. This is how they found out anyway.
Comments: 16
Kudos: 117





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is the prologue-y bit, talking mostly about Jeff’s childhood, setting the stage for the rest of the story!
> 
> TW: descriptions of self harming, and a suicide attempt.

_“You want to see the scar?”_

Jeff had not been lying when he told his dad about the appendicitis story. He did, however, hold back some important information; the path that one incident started him on afterwards, and the time it was the study group’s turn to save him.

It was seventh grade. Jeff was alone, miserable, at least on the inside. The external details of that year are a blur to him now, repressed through years of practice. He does remember the whirlwind that was going through his head at the time.

Appendicitis. It seemed like a perfectly believable lie, harmless even. 7th grade was the perfect time to reinvent himself, even more so since the “big cheddar” incident.

Nobody would get hurt from caring about him. He craved the attention, but not for popularity; he just wanted people to care about him. You see, he had more feelings at the time, or at least he externalised them more often. He spent many nights crying himself to sleep, over his dad. Eventually he became more numb than he intended.

This would get him back on the right track. He just wanted to be loved, he wanted people to care about him. It could fix things.

Jeff was up late one night; his mum had fallen asleep on the couch, watching one of those medical dramas. He had come down to say goodnight, and caught a glimpse. The patient had appendicitis, and it was then his lie began to take shape in his mind.

His plan was flawless. On Monday, he told the biggest blabbermouth in the school that he needed surgery to remove his appendix. By lunch, everybody was asking him questions, and expressing their bewilderment and concern. He faked sick to his mother the next day, the day of his ‘surgery’. The stage was set, and the next day was even better than Monday. He had received 17 cards from his classmates.

To Jeff, that represented 17 people that actually cared about his wellbeing, unlike his son of a bitch dad who abandoned him.

Somebody almost tore his plan apart though; Jeff wasn’t as good at lying back then. Beth Brannon asked to his cool new scar. Jeff mumbled something about bandages, and spent the whole rest of the day wondering how he was going to get himself out of this hole. The rest of the day was spent on autopilot, ‘what was he going to do?’.

He got the idea when he saw his mum open something that afternoon...the scissors. It would be harmless. Well, he supposed, not harmless...but it would be worth it.

Later that night, he snuck downstairs and took the scissors to the bathroom. He stared at himself in the mirror for awhile, pondering how exactly he was going to pull it off. He googled “appendectomy scars”, and made sure he was actually going to get the right side (just in case Beth or anybody was an expert on the appendix). He wanted to do it right.

The first slice he made didn’t go very far, he didn’t even draw blood. It hurt slightly, but wasn’t very noticeable. He would have to try harder. He took a deep breath, and pressed the blade as hard as he could onto his side. Slowly, but surely, he made his way downwards, following the pictures he’d looked at.

It hurt.

It reminded him of grazing his knees on the concrete when he was younger. He watched the blood pool under his hand, and he let out a few jaggedy breaths.

Jeff was scared at how good it felt. Obviously it felt good to get away with his lie, and obviously it felt good to have people care about him...but...there was something more. His mind had been quiet; the pain had been too loud.

He dismissed it, looking in the mirror at his handy work. It would do. Everyone believed him.

The second time Jeff Winger took a blade to himself was when he was studying for the LSATs. He knew he wasn’t going to pass, and his mind was drowning in anxiety and hopelessness.

  
It was a different motivation this time, there was no one for him to make care about him, he just needed his mind to shut up for one goddamn second. It was simple. Quick. Crude. Jeff Winger had been shaving his iconic stubble for a few years now; the razors would do.

“I’m not crazy.” He had whispered to himself, right before he slashed his thigh.  
  


Arms were too obvious, and besides, the ladies loved it when he showed them off. He cut close to the bottom of his underwear. Using the mirror, he watched the blood bead at the first cut he made. He released a breath he didn’t know he had been holding. And he cut again. And again. Each time, he took a breath to watch the blood drip slowly down his thigh. His mind was quiet. And thus, it was during the mayhem that he figured out exactly how he was going to get past this. He’d done it before, on easier things, of course.

He was going to cheat. And he succeeded. Jeff Winger was now a lawyer.

And he was a good one too, but he now had his biggest secret.

And that was impressive for a guy with a fake undergraduate degree. But that lie had been crafty, clever; this one was just shameful. When things got too difficult, or stressful, he took to cutting. He got a little crafty sometimes; there were a few burn marks from the brief period of time he took up smoking to look cool. It was sporadic, and varied, most cases were easy for the talented Jeff Winger.

The first time he planned to kill himself was when his firm found out about his fake undergraduate degree. His perfectly curated life was falling apart around him. He had worked so hard to get where he was, he reinvented himself when he was just 10 years old, and now, everything was crumbling. He needed that job, not for the money, but because he was somebody to those people. He was the Jeff Winger. He had a knack for winning the stupidest cases with the stupidest arguments, and it was impressive because it worked.

He had planned to OD that night, when he found out the news. His celebration with one of his clients was cut short, and he could barely think as he walked out of the bar and all the way home. His heartbeat thumped in his ears, and his wind was spiralling again. He went to various pharmacies on the way home, and a liquor store, and was ready to give up. Jeff Winger was a man who didn’t put in hard work, except when it got him out of harder work.

And dying? Right now, it was sure as hell an easier thing to do than living.

Something Jeff Winger never wanted to admit to himself was that he was also a bit of a coward sometimes. He had taken too many pills to count, and drunk too many bottles of alcohol to tell if they were working. He was groggy, and he felt empty. He knew he was going to die without leaving anything good in the world. Long ago, that would’ve scared him, but he had repressed those emotions deep down. Or so he had believed.

Lord knows how, but he managed to call 911 and get help sent to his apartment. He doesn’t remember a lot after that. There were sirens, the stark white hospital walls, nurses trying to get anything out of him...mostly it was slipping in and out of consciousness. He eventually stayed awake, and it took him 2 hours to be willing to talk to anyone. He was ashamed, and a little confused, his memories of the night had been washed away by drinking. Drinking that he was paying for, as his head hurt and his throat burned.

Jeff was sent to a therapist, and by then his spirit was strong enough that he knew what he needed to say. He didn’t know for sure if the hospital knew about the self harm - he assumed they did - but he didn’t care. He was discharged a few days later, a fake smile slapped on his face as he lied through his teeth about keeping up with his appointments.

The first thing he did after hospital was go to the mall. Unbeknownst to Jeff, this was the most important visit of his life.

It was during that trip that Jeff hatched his plan to get his undergraduate degree at Greendale. His life would still suck for awhile, but the self harm had gotten him through that before, it could do that again.

Jeff Winger was going to get his life back.


	2. Risks

If there was one thing Jeff Winger was good at it, it was coasting.

After his first plan fell through (Duncan) he was feeling defeated, but he wasn’t going to give up. He could flunk one test, or, at least he thought he would have to, until the hot blonde he tried to hook up with invited him back to the study group. He cut himself that night, punishment for being stupid enough to think it would be that easy. It was like the universe was going after him on purpose - some would say karma - but he wasn’t going to let it stop him from getting back to the top. He would crawl there if he had to.

He didn’t know what to think of the other people in the group. They were a ragtag bunch of misfits, sure...and that was about it. Still not as bad as their teacher, Señor Chang. He seemed like a real nut job. Needless to say, minus the blonde, he wasn’t planning to get to know anything of them very well.

Greendale seemed like a pretty shit school. And it was weird. But it would have to do. Jeff would stop at nothing to get back on top (and by stop at nothing, he means literally do nothing). He planned on picking the easiest classes, and he heard of one taught by a Professor Whitman (a Dead Poet’s Society wannabe who was obsessed with “seizing the day”). Or at least, it was meant to be an easy A; he ended up putting so much effort into that class he was ashamed when it was Britta who actually got him out of it. He couldn’t make eye contact with her for a week after that.

To be fair, he had a habit of not making eye contact with anybody. The beauty of modern technology. He pretended like he didn’t want to get involved with their lives, in reality, he didn’t want anybody getting involved with his. He was afraid that they’d know he wasn’t really that confident, that it was all a ruse, that he pretended not to care to prevent anybody from realising he cared too much. And most of all, he couldn’t have anybody working out his secret. It felt shameful.

A small part of him did want somebody to know thought. Craved the attention of somebody, wanted them to worry about him. But that part of him was so quiet, weak from the years he had to fend for himself. He couldn’t count on anybody. 

School was bearable for awhile. It was sluggish, and boring, but it had become Jeff’s routine. He had no other way out. He started to enjoy the study group more, despite its slightly bad-natured origins. He had a short sober period from harming himself. Didn’t need to cut when the only way was forward, and there were no obstacles.

That changed when Jeff lost his condo. Living out of his car was hell: his back and neck ached from craning himself into his backseat, he always smelled slightly of metal from the school’s water, and the bags under his eyes started making him look like a raccoon. He stopped shaving, and found a different use for the razors he gotten out of his house. At night, he could barely sleep. He stared out the window at the night sky, his head spinning, pondering how he reached this point in his life. He felt defeated. He cut even more than he had before, and his thighs were getting sore.

You would think things turned a corner when he was able to have a roof over his head again, even a temporary one. You would be wrong. Staying with Abed stopped the aching in his muscles, but the pain in his heart and mind only deepened. He fell deep into hopelessness. Motivation was no longer in his vocabulary. He was always on autopilot, watching TV, maybe making it to some classes if he was lucky. Days blurred into one long hellish dreamscape that he couldn’t escape. There was no point trying to.

Cutting again helped him regain his senses, but it was nerve wracking to do while living with Abed. His friend was known for being observant, and blunt, and Jeff really didn’t want that conversation to happen. Not just with Abed, but anymore, ever.

He started shaving again, an excuse to need the razors. He started keeping them on his person (this was the only time he wished he actually used a bag). It was hard to get privacy when the bathrooms were communal, so he had to do it in the school stalls. Jeff became intimately familiar with how gross the school’s toilets were, and he vowed never to use them once he moved out of Abed’s place. Another time was when Abed had classes - if he went to them.

Jeff took a risk one time. Abed was meant to be in class for another 10 minutes. ‘I have time’ he told himself. It would work out. He cut his arms for ease of access; long sleeves would become more acceptable as winter rounded the corner. It would be fine. It would all be fine.

Abed’s day was going fine. Similar to Jeff’s depressive state, Abed lived on autopilot. But he thrived there. He used his mind for other more important matters; film ideas, the movies he had watched, the movies he wanted to watch, what he and Troy were going to do later...the list went on and on, but it didn’t include most of the boring schoolwork they did. His true passion was in filmmaking, and so that’s where his thoughts would remain. 

It was his autopilot mode that made Jeff breathe a sigh of relief after he had been caught. Abed was still thinking when Jeff rapidly turned away from his friend, slipping his sleeve down and tucking the razor in his pocket in one swift motion. Abed was confused, curious as to what Jeff was doing, so he asked.

“Nothing, I mean, just looking for something.”

“What is it? I can help you find it.” Abed offered.

“Uh...no, you know what Abed? I think I left it in the bathroom.” Jeff forced a closed smile and ducked behind Abed to leave.

Jeff hurried off to the bathroom, hands in his pockets, pushing his arms against his sides to help stop the bleeding. It was a good thing he was a fan of darker sweaters (the stains didn’t go through). He fumbled his fingers around in his pocket, looking for the razor, so he could move it to his back pocket with the other two.

It wasn’t in his left pocket. Or his right pocket. Or even his back pocket.

“Shit.” Jeff mumbled under his breath.

All he could hope is that Abed didn’t look on his bed. 

After doing a lap of the block, he went back to Abed’s room. His heart was pounding against his chest, and he could hear his heartbeat in his ears. But he was Jeff Winger, and if there was one thing he was good at, it was keeping up appearances. 

“I remembered I gave it to Duncan.” He lied in a way only a lawyer could.

“Cool. Cool, cool, cool. Wanna watch Terminator?”

For once, Jeff actually did want to watch a movie. Anything to avoid having to lie to Abed more than he wanted to. He breathed a silent sigh of relief, and nodded, sitting next to Abed.

Jeff really needed his own place again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is also not edited, and a little shorter than I would’ve liked. Hope you enjoy it anyway! I’m looking forward to continuing :)
> 
> Thank you for your kind comments, this chapter is dedicated to dear_wormwood, LadyBramy98, elle, and beakbonk.
> 
> Stay safe everyone!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading this :) I’ve been having a rough time during this pandemic and have binge watched a lot of Community, and Jeff’s appendicitis story really got to me. I’ve been struggling to resist relapsing into this sort of stuff so I’m projecting and using this story as a way to get my feelings out and stay sane during this insane time.  
> I didn’t this so I apologise for any mistakes!
> 
> Please leave a comment if you want me to address anything in particular :) sending love to everyone!


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